


a city where reality has long been forgotten

by rewire



Category: Inception (2010), Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: BAMF Chrome Dokuro, Dream Sharing, Gen, a brief crossover with inception, character study of a sorts, mukuro likes dangerous things, rip the dream sharing community
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 23:30:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17796833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rewire/pseuds/rewire
Summary: Post-canon. Chrome gets into the dream-sharing industry. Mukuro watches, and laughs.





	a city where reality has long been forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the KHR Rarepair Valentine's day event, day 3: alone! The prompt works if you squint at it. My actual day three entry is currently sitting around 10k, and is refusing to condense into one chapter, so I'm posting this in its stead.
> 
> Title from Florence + the Machine's Patricia.
> 
> Head to the bottom for brief content warnings.

The sunlight is quieter here. Chrome’s not sure if it’s a matter of perception, or a facet of the dream’s construction, but she likes it. Something about the way it softens corners and blurs faces relaxes her hold on the dream-shape she’s inhabiting—unbinding geometry and lending shadows to her smile. Mukuro likes it too, she thinks. He’s been smiling more, an honest and cutting thing that spells nothing good for their target.

Good thing they don’t need him for anything other than this information, then. Brushing a hand over her short cropped hair, she holds that thought, bringing her trident to bear. Mist—waking thought made real in the dream world—gathers around its prongs, pulsing to the beat of her heart.

Beside her, Mukuro shakes his own hair over his shoulders, all self-assured grace and languid angles. “Now, I think.”

Chrome nods in agreement, and releases the net she had been building. Without wavering, the dream contorts into her desired pattern, falling in line like a well trained dog. Chrome tilts her lips farther upwards, the shadows of the dream world dancing at the corners of her eyes. Their target doesn’t seem to notice the change, continuing his walk down the cobblestone street. Even better, none of his projections change from their casual stroll, continuing on their way like nothing has happened. His subconscious, even militarized, doesn’t raise an alarm.

A quick glance at Mukuro shows her his smile has taken on a similar tilt, not so different from the one he uses to mock their enemies.

(Somewhere along the line, after she had proven to the world that she belonged by his side, he had stopped teaching her directly, simply pointing her at increasingly complex obstacles, and watching her tear them to pieces.

She suspects that it’s some combination of the way he trained himself blending with the way he sees her—part satisfaction in a well forged weapon, part thrill of a hunting partner. Someday he’s going to look at her, and _see,_  straight through her soul like he always does, and deem her ready for whatever he’s been training her for. Someday soon. She’s excited to find out what happens next.)

In the meantime, they kill hours like this, walking in the world of dreamers, gathering information from minds unable to sense even a whisper of her presence. She hones her edge, and Mukuro watches her patiently, thinking up new and better things for her to unravel.

Their target leads them straight to the information they need, hidden in a safe. She listens to Mukuro’s scoff with another quiet smile, silently agreeing with him. A safe, really? How predictable.

From there, it’s an easy walk out of his mind, stepping back to the edges of his consciousness, easy as opening a door. (Easy as cracking a safe.)

Chrome carefully draws back her illusions, not bothering to manifest her trident. She smooths over the traces their presence had left, small as they were, and makes sure they can’t be caught that way. She isn’t careless, after all.

When she finishes, she takes another glance at Mukuro’s ghost-like form, shining with striations of indigo, standing out from the darkness behind him. They’re not as physical as they were in the target’s dream, but Chrome thinks she can still make out that same grin on his face, curved like the edge of a knife. Silently, he lifts his trident, and _pulls_.

Maurice Fischer’s mind comes apart in jagged pieces, fracturing slowly as Mukuro’s will drowns his own. It will be hours before he is discovered, a blank faced wreck, staring at nothing. By then, they’ll be long gone, the plans for his business investments nothing but a distant memory.

(Mukuro laughs at that thought, and Chrome doesn’t bother to hide the flicker of satisfaction that rises within her. His sense of humor is truly awful, and involves far too many puns.)

They drift drift back to their bodies slowly, Mukuro twining his senses with her own, showing her without words how to settle more quickly in her skin. When she opens her eyes they’re sitting where they were an hour ago, faces reflecting the exact same expression of delight. She wonders what challenge he’ll pose to her next. She wonders how quickly she can tear it apart for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: Short section where Mukuro renders a man brain-dead.
> 
> A thought I've had for a while! If I have time later, I might expand on it (though time has been in rather short supply lately, lol).
> 
> I'm on pillowfort as tempestsave, and twitter as wire_writer, feel free to pester me there!


End file.
